It is universally perceived the cyclones are omnipresent, dominating the atmosphere and cutting a swathe of destruction at will, plotting a course of their own choosing.
They are in fact guided missiles, being steered under the influence of other atmospheric pressures. There are of course ingredients in place to create these monstrosities, hence we have designated cyclone seasons in the southern hemisphere – roughly December through April – and hurricane season in the northern hemi – July through October – and typhoon season in equatorial latitudes, where typhoon alley delivers over 20 such events on average, each and every year.
Before Match 2025 Alfred was best known as Batman’s butler, but he certainly packed a punch for a Category 1 system. The tracking looked traditional for a while, a solid High Pressure in The Bight guiding him on a course parallel to the east coast, transitioning from the ultra-warm Coral Sea and diminishing in strength as he transformed into the Tasman Sea and cooler waters south.
However, a tricky, seemingly innocuous ridge of high pressure east of the Gold Coast turned Alfred on his heels and steered him in a dawdle back west by northwest towards North Stradbroke Island (still suffering from power outages) . The greatest impact was due to the snails pace, at one point Alfred was travelling at 1kph and then sat stationary for 24 hours over Moreton Bay, sucking up moisture, before crossing the coast as a rain depression, not even a cyclone.
Before the cruel about turn, Alfred delivered 3 days of highlight reels at Kirra and Burleigh; amazing barrel footage reached every corner of the globe on fresh rotations. Kirra nowadays only truly comes to life as itself during events like this. I got off the school bus on the afternoon Alby Falzon was filming the MP sequence at Kirra, it was just another 3’ day, hollow and ruler edged and still not a drop of water out of place with the afternoon sou’ easter blowing. Those 3’ Kirra days don’t exist anymore, it is pretty much a fun longboard wave until it hits the 6-8’ range and does its thing as Kirra.
The aftermath is a straight up action/reaction scenario. Perfect banks being washed away is a 100% guaranteed result in any swell that reaches 10’. The big difference between a 10’ groundswell and a cyclone swell is major erosion at every beach. There are cliffs of sand right along the coast; all the buffers built up over many years without cyclonic activity have been destroyed. Alfred was in fact the first system to cross SE QLD since Wanda in 1974.
The deficits are massive and extend well into northern NSW. Duranbah is virtually no more, the beach has eroded beyond the tree line. Dbah has always been vulnerable, the wave buoy measured 15-metre waves and it cops it. Back when the Sand Bypass was implemented in 2000 there was discussion about sacrificing Dbah. Why, because the sand drifting along from Fingal was going to be scooped up and pumped onto Froggies. We fought hard to save Dbah, why, because it is good maybe 250 days a year, it is traditionally the go to spot when the points are small. The deal sealer was presenting the economic impact of losing Dbah – only then did the powers that be agree with us.
The clock now starts ticking on recovery. The power outages, the empty shelves at supermarkets, the loss of income to staff whose business has been shut down for a week – they are troublesome outcomes. The decimation of the pointbreaks in the peak surf season will also have major implications on local businesses and major surfing events.
When I ran for Parliament, I was invited to a Chamber of Commerce meeting. Imagine that, a surfer waiting 40 years to deliver the equation “Sand + Surf = Success”. The indignity this was received with. What would this fool know. There has never been an acknowledgement that the beach and surf butters the bread that nourishes.
Speaking to a couple Burleigh locals in the week leading up to the ABB Finals, they were nervously watching Alfred’s errant tracking, hopeful the very decent banks at Burleigh would not be washed away. As it turned out Luke Madden and his site-set-up crew had to abandon ship as Alfred bore down on the ABB weekend, forcing a postponement until April.
The clock starts ticking. Burleigh and Snapper are both equally compromised in events like this. I guess the one difference is that Burleigh has to recover by itself and Snapper has the Sand Pumping to help massage the sand into a new bank.
As I write, there are about 50 days for Snapper to host the return of WSL Championship Surfing for the first time in four years. Early May was cleverly chosen as the new window, it has delivered splendidly for the past three Challenger Series events. One of the reasons for this date, apart from favourable winds and regular east swells, was the fact it’s peak sand-flow season. In theory the bank should have had time to recover from a big February swell that washed the bank away. However, Alfred was an extraordinary weather/swell event.
The replenishment process will be touch and go for the CT event. I visited Sand Pumping Central to survey the damage report and try to get a handle on the chances of recovery, knowing that historically it takes a minimum 6 weeks to build a bank from scratch, and that’s with favourable conditions.
My main concern was that scratch it was. There was not a grain of sand at Froggies. The horrible wide bank at Rainbow is most unfavourable, however it has no effect on fresh sand building at Froggies. In the past, the first week of recovery would be clearing the pipes of twigs, branches and debris but now filters and screens stop that, and to my surprise with no structural damage the first two thousand cubic metres of sand had been pumped to Froggies overnight.
Ok, tick. In past swell events sand had been furiously pumped to Froggies throughout the storm. Bruce Lee and I argued against this as it drifted immediately into the current and ended deposited wide of Rainbow – a useless outcome for good waves. So, the pumping was turned off as Alfred approached and the cones are all full of sand ready to pump to Froggies. Double tick.
After surveying the erosion and loss of sand I walked into that office thinking it was a hopeless situation. It will be tight, but there is a chance, and for the town of Coolangatta there is a lot riding on this recovery by the first week in May.
The conclusion: After a 50 year pause in cyclones moving this far south, residents are once again on edge; fearful their lives can be uprooted by the whims of wind and swell. At the first sign of a low-pressure system forming in the Coral Sea the supermarket shelves will be stripped as the preppers hunker down with as much food and water as they can stuff into the trolley.
